Four things you can do with Brick Search
Posted by Huw,
Here's more information about the Brick Search app and what you can do with it:
#ad Brick Search’s minifigure scanner changed how minifigures were collected – but Brick Search is far more than a minifigure scanner.
Brick Search was the first to introduce a minifigure scanner to identify who was inside Collectable Minifigure boxes, and it continues to be one of our most popular features. But, this is an app that does so much more for the LEGO collector and with Brickset members able to claim a free three-month trial of Brick Search Plus, what better time to run through some of its exclusive features…
On-the-go collection management
Once you’ve downloaded Brick Search and created a Brick Search Plus account, you can sync it with your account on Brickset. And then you’ve got your LEGO collection in an app, with you at all times.
Open your profile, go to ‘sync with Brickset’ and tap the blue button – in a few moments, you’ll have your Brickset account in Brick Search Plus, and any changes you make in one platform will be reflected in the other.
Your collection can be viewed as a whole or broken down into themes; sorted via piece count, release date, date added, price, retiring date and subtheme; and displayed in one of three ways – list, grid or tile.
Shopping in store? Scan the barcode on a LEGO set to find it in Brick Search and check if it’s already in your collection. You’ll get all the set information and images and if it isn’t one you’ve already got, the live price comparison tool will tell you if this is the best price right now – or if you can get it cheaper somewhere else.
Save money on the sets you want
Brick Search offers live price comparison on LEGO sets, and it can be used in one of two ways.
First up, build up a list of sets you are after and view them in Wishlist. They will automatically be sorted into four different categories – all sets, on sale, retiring, and retired. ‘On sale’ lists all sets with live price reductions online, displaying the very best discount that those sets are currently listed at.
Alternatively, you can find a list of online stores that stock the set you are after in each individual set’s listing on the app. Either find the set’s listing through the browse, wishlist or search functions, or scan its barcode if you are in a shop, and underneath the set images and information will be a list of online stores and details of any live reductions.
Between the wishlist and scanner, the app offers the latest price information on the LEGO sets you are after, quickly and conveniently.
3% cashback on LEGO.com orders
But with all that said, we know shopping at LEGO.com is usually the preferred option: you get Insiders points, gifts-with-purchase and more offers and promotions through the year. With Brick Search, you get all that and more.
Specifically, 3% more. Buy at LEGO.com via Brick Search Plus and we’ll give you 3% of your spend back in the form of ‘Brick Credits’, which can be put towards a digital LEGO.com gift card that we’ll send to you. That means with every purchase, you’re building a discount on a future purchase; today’s you is doing tomorrow’s you a favour.
This is all on top of still earning the regular LEGO.com perks like Insiders points and GWPs, which means instead of earning the equivalent to 5% cashback on LEGO.com purchases, you could be earning the equivalent of 8% back. And when it comes to double points events, that increases to the equivalent of a massive 13% cashback.
Brick Credits are earned exclusively through LEGO.com purchases made via the app, and are entirely separate from the LEGO Insiders programme. Full terms and conditions can be found here.
Minifigure stock checker
Minifigure code scanning is well-established as the best and most reliable way to identify the Collectable Minifigures you are in search of. But, there’s a crucial step before you get to that point of picking up some packs to scan, and until now it’s raised a question no-one has been able to answer – how do you know if the LEGO store you are going to is even likely to have the ones you are after in stock? Beyond release day for any Minifigures series, after waves of others scanning boxes it has been impossible to know how many of each minifigure is still waiting to be found.
But now, Brick Search can tell you. Thanks to some clever coding we can say if there’s a high, medium or low chance of finding each minifigure in your LEGO store. Just as scanning a minifigure box code saves you money, the minifigure stock checker saves you time.
You’ll find the minifigure stock checker via the home screen, and from there you’ll know if there’s a trove of Trash Monsters, a flotilla of Football Goalkeepers or even a bundle of Boba Cup Fans (that’s enough alliteration) at your local LEGO store. If there isn’t, the stock checker shows you stock levels at every other LEGO store near to you too.
Please feel free to leave comments or constructive criticism about the app below, but we'll be moderating them as necessary.
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43 comments on this article
Can you one search for bricks?
For all those about to comment (we salute you)
Seriously, though…how much would you need to spend at LEGO.com with that 3% discount to offset the cost of the yearly subscription? Or monthly?
Bricksearch rendered itself pretty much obsolete when it started charging a subscription fee. With the multiple other free app out there that do exactly the same things (apart from discount) like Minifig Scan, I dunno why anyone would want to pay for Bricksearch.
Third best at a job can’t get away with being the only one that charges a subscription fee to do that job. So that covers CMF scanning and set retirement dates (this is meta-coded into the LEGO website). And there’s only one LEGO Store in my area, which is easy enough to call and get a stock check by phone. If they still have cases they haven’t put out yet, there’s a 100% chance of finding any specific CMF from that wave. I don’t track my collection at all, so that’s no help. And basically this means all I’d get from this is someone charging me for tips on when sets are on sale. And I time most of my purchases based on either GWP availability or immediate need, so…
I can think of a fifth thing you can do with Brick Search...
I stopped using Bricksearch due to the bugginess of the Minifigure searching. Takes too long to work, many times doesn't work and you have to restart the app. It took me a lot of time for the app to read the code while I was in a store.
So I swapped to another program. Because of that experience, I am not interested in paying a subscription.
A monthly subscription of 3 dollars means , and At 3% credits earned, means I need to spend at least $100 every month to break even. I know that Lego is expensive, but everything listed as options for the sight I don't need to pay to get that information currently (with BrickSet on my phone with my Chrome app).
None of these items entices me to use the app.
I hope this Sponsored post is merely an ill-advised experiment and not a sign of things to come.
If Brickset is in need of funding, I would sooner pay a subscription fee to the site so it can provide honest third-party product reviews than stick around through this worthless noise. I find Brickset an indispensable service, but like Brick Search, there are many alternatives.
Commenting has ended on this article
@yellowcastle said:
"Commenting has ended on this article"
Constructive criticism is fine and so far no-one has strayed from that.
@Junyor said:
"I hope this Sponsored post is merely an ill-advised experiment and not a sign of things to come."
It not sponsored, as in 'paid for', but we may earn a small commission on subscriptions, in the same way that we do on other affiliate links.
"If Brickset is in need of funding, I would sooner pay a subscription fee to the site so it can provide honest third-party product reviews than stick around through this worthless noise. I find Brickset an indispensable service, but like Brick Search, there are many alternatives."
Thank you. There's no need for that yet, because advertising and affiliate marketing provides enough revenue at the moment.
@Huw said:
" @yellowcastle said:
"Commenting has ended on this article"
Constructive criticism is fine and so far no-one has strayed from that."
The other day you said you consider whether it’s best for the other entity to partner with Brickset or go it alone. I didn’t want to pile on the sloths anymore than had already happened, but maybe the other question that should be asked is if it’s better for Brickset to partner with someone else or step back and let them do their own thing. You already knew from the post announcing the shift to a subscription format, and again from the review of CMF scanners, that almost nobody commented in support of Bricksearch at that point, so it stands to reason that this partnership was going to draw criticism more than support.
That’s all fine, but where are the sloths?
@Jackthenipper said:
"That’s all fine, but where are the sloths?"
Excellent question. All posts could be improved with the addition of sloths, imo.
@Hiratha said:
" @Jackthenipper said:
"That’s all fine, but where are the sloths?"
Excellent question. All posts could be improved with the addition of sloths, imo."
The other thread was hijacked by Brick Search discussions... it's only fair that this one gets hijacked by a sloth discussion!
*puke emoji*
There were comments on the other article? Well, they must've been very uninteresting if all of them were nuked from orbit.
In terms of this app, I can see a benefit for everything it offers. And I can even see it being popular for those who are not yet at the point where they have a set schedule and method for collecting Lego. Maybe from years 2-5 of entering the hobby as an adult.
Whether it's worth the subscription is something only the individual considering it can decide. The only calculation I can think of is:
(20*33)-'amount spent in a Lego Store in one year' is greater or less than 0
I used to use an app called Brick by Brick to view my Brickset collection and wanted lists, aswell as view the news articles. It worked really well, but for some reason it stopped being maintained a couple of years ago and I’ve been struggling to find a good free app that satisfies the same needs ever since.
I looked at this Bricksearch and backed away as soon as I saw there was a subscription associated.
I don’t need scanners or minifigure searches myself, I just want a free app that can display my Brickset collection in the same clean way that Brick by Brick did, without subscription.
I appreciate that people have taken time and effort for these things, and recognise that some may well deserve a bit of income for their efforts, but it needs to be something unique and not done before.
It’s not for me, I’m sorry
@markisnot said:
"I stopped using Bricksearch due to the bugginess of the Minifigure searching. Takes too long to work, many times doesn't work and you have to restart the app. It took me a lot of time for the app to read the code while I was in a store.
So I swapped to another program. Because of that experience, I am not interested in paying a subscription.
A monthly subscription of 3 dollars means , and At 3% credits earned, means I need to spend at least $100 every month to break even. I know that Lego is expensive, but everything listed as options for the sight I don't need to pay to get that information currently (with BrickSet on my phone with my Chrome app). "
I don't know what it's like there, but here we can get more than 3% cashback using free cashback websites. And there are better free apps for minifig scanning.
I use 3 (or 2 if you count Bricklink as official Lego) sites for my alternate needs. Brickset is the primary one, for looking things up, a wantlist and inventory of what complete sets I have, and posts on the main page. Rebrickable for working down inventory on vintage sets and the occasional parts lookup, and Bricklink for an easier set inventory and lookup tool, plus of course buying used parts.
Lego already makes back their money on Bricklink, and Rebrickable would be worth paying for if I had a bigger collection or spent more time on it, and Brickset would honestly be worth it for the usefulness over the years.
Can't say as I have any other needs for Lego stuff, unless there's a site that comes to my house and sorts my parts for me lol.
Thanks! I’m checking it out. The Brickset sync was easy.
@maffyd said:
"There were comments on the other article? Well, they must've been very uninteresting if all of them were nuked from orbit."
No, there were comments _about_ the other article. Comments were preemptively disabled on the article itself, so people shifted to the next easiest target, which was the review @MeganL posted about the latest Friends riding stable. At first it was just questions about why comments were already disabled, and then people just started treating it like a substitute comment section.
I have yet to see what the cost of the monthly subscription will be.
Can anyone answer what this expected cost is?
@Joce1275 said:
" @Hiratha said:
" @Jackthenipper said:
"That’s all fine, but where are the sloths?"
Excellent question. All posts could be improved with the addition of sloths, imo."
The other thread was hijacked by Brick Search discussions... it's only fair that this one gets hijacked by a sloth discussion!"
The sloths are quite chuffed they're remembered :-)
My Lego is housed in an area without phone or WiFi coverage, so the ability to catalogue and manage off-line is really helpful. I had originally looked at Bricksearch, but found the app’s ability to catalogue older sets (>10 years) very patchy. Brickset is much better, and I use it instead. If the two can work together in some functional way it’s worth me looking at it. And I’ll accept a fee as I don’t want to spend the time trying to make my own lists / spreadsheets etc of what I have or try and figure out how to add pics.
"Shopping in store? Scan the barcode on a LEGO set to find it in Brick Search and check if it’s already in your collection." If a set's still on the shelves, then I have no trouble remembering if I already own it. Sometimes I pull up Brickset on my phone in a store to check my wanted list, though.
@Huw said:
" @Junyor said:
"I hope this Sponsored post is merely an ill-advised experiment and not a sign of things to come."
It not sponsored, as in 'paid for', but we may earn a small commission on subscriptions, in the same way that we do on other affiliate links.
"If Brickset is in need of funding, I would sooner pay a subscription fee to the site so it can provide honest third-party product reviews than stick around through this worthless noise. I find Brickset an indispensable service, but like Brick Search, there are many alternatives."
Thank you. There's no need for that yet, because advertising and affiliate marketing provides enough revenue at the moment."
I probably regularly visit only 5 or 6 websites. Excluding news/sports, Brickset is my home away from home and I'm happy to support it wherever possible including with as much affiliate marketing through Amazon, Lego, Target, etc. as I can.
This partnership with Brick Search, though, is not for me. I echo the sentiments above about struggling with the app even before the pay wall became a thing. But I welcome Brickset continuing to explore new and better ways to experience our hobby while also generating revenue streams for your wonderful site. While this one doesn't work for me, maybe the next one will. :o)
@PurpleDave said:
" @maffyd said:
"There were comments on the other article? Well, they must've been very uninteresting if all of them were nuked from orbit."
No, there were comments _about_ the other article. Comments were preemptively disabled on the article itself, so people shifted to the next easiest target, which was the review @MeganL posted about the latest Friends riding stable. At first it was just questions about why comments were already disabled, and then people just started treating it like a substitute comment section."
Ah! I see. I wonder why it was preemptively locked then? I don't really. I have a good idea. Thanks for explaining.
@maffyd said:
" @PurpleDave said:
" @maffyd said:
"There were comments on the other article? Well, they must've been very uninteresting if all of them were nuked from orbit."
No, there were comments _about_ the other article. Comments were preemptively disabled on the article itself, so people shifted to the next easiest target, which was the review @MeganL posted about the latest Friends riding stable. At first it was just questions about why comments were already disabled, and then people just started treating it like a substitute comment section."
Ah! I see. I wonder why it was preemptively locked then? I don't really. I have a good idea. Thanks for explaining."
At least based on some of what got posted on the Friends review, there are a small but very angry group of people who really hate Brick Search for reasons and want to make that everyone else’s problem, and had done so on previous threads that mentioned it. The comments were locked because moderating another thread of them being Like That seemed unappealing.
I assume this thread is open because even if that’s the case then it’s at least easier to do when they’re corralled somewhere predictable instead of leaking out into assorted other threads, but they don’t seem to have turned up to be quite so angry in this one. No idea why but I appreciate it.
@TheOtherMike said:
""Shopping in store? Scan the barcode on a LEGO set to find it in Brick Search and check if it’s already in your collection." If a set's still on the shelves, then I have no trouble remembering if I already own it. Sometimes I pull up Brickset on my phone in a store to check my wanted list, though."
You could be in a Bricks & Minifigs or other reseller, looking at a retired set, unsure if you have it.
I assume the angry ones got it out of their system.
Now they're looking for the next thing to be angry about.
@maffyd said:
" @PurpleDave said:
" @maffyd said:
"There were comments on the other article? Well, they must've been very uninteresting if all of them were nuked from orbit."
No, there were comments _about_ the other article. Comments were preemptively disabled on the article itself, so people shifted to the next easiest target, which was the review @MeganL posted about the latest Friends riding stable. At first it was just questions about why comments were already disabled, and then people just started treating it like a substitute comment section."
Ah! I see. I wonder why it was preemptively locked then? I don't really. I have a good idea. Thanks for explaining."
@Huw posted saying there was an e-mail link in the article so comments could be sent directly to Bricksearch, since it’s their app.
@Hiratha said:
" @maffyd said:
" @PurpleDave said:
" @maffyd said:
"There were comments on the other article? Well, they must've been very uninteresting if all of them were nuked from orbit."
No, there were comments _about_ the other article. Comments were preemptively disabled on the article itself, so people shifted to the next easiest target, which was the review @MeganL posted about the latest Friends riding stable. At first it was just questions about why comments were already disabled, and then people just started treating it like a substitute comment section."
Ah! I see. I wonder why it was preemptively locked then? I don't really. I have a good idea. Thanks for explaining."
At least based on some of what got posted on the Friends review, there are a small but very angry group of people who really hate Brick Search for reasons and want to make that everyone else’s problem, and had done so on previous threads that mentioned it. The comments were locked because moderating another thread of them being Like That seemed unappealing.
I assume this thread is open because even if that’s the case then it’s at least easier to do when they’re corralled somewhere predictable instead of leaking out into assorted other threads, but they don’t seem to have turned up to be quite so angry in this one. No idea why but I appreciate it."
Is HarryPottercrite a word? Kinda feels like it should be.
@PurpleDave said:
" @Hiratha said:
" @maffyd said:
" @PurpleDave said:
" @maffyd said:
"There were comments on the other article? Well, they must've been very uninteresting if all of them were nuked from orbit."
No, there were comments _about_ the other article. Comments were preemptively disabled on the article itself, so people shifted to the next easiest target, which was the review @MeganL posted about the latest Friends riding stable. At first it was just questions about why comments were already disabled, and then people just started treating it like a substitute comment section."
Ah! I see. I wonder why it was preemptively locked then? I don't really. I have a good idea. Thanks for explaining."
At least based on some of what got posted on the Friends review, there are a small but very angry group of people who really hate Brick Search for reasons and want to make that everyone else’s problem, and had done so on previous threads that mentioned it. The comments were locked because moderating another thread of them being Like That seemed unappealing.
I assume this thread is open because even if that’s the case then it’s at least easier to do when they’re corralled somewhere predictable instead of leaking out into assorted other threads, but they don’t seem to have turned up to be quite so angry in this one. No idea why but I appreciate it."
Is HarryPottercrite a word? Kinda feels like it should be."
I don’t, in fact, turn up on every HP thread to be angry about it, quite deliberately. You may check, if you like.
This despite having trans friends and a trans sibling who are directly harmed by her actions. Imagine the restraint that takes. Imagine the reasons I must have for anger beyond “being mad at an app for being a bit naff and charging for it, a thing which is perfectly ignorable and has no real life impact that one does not choose to participate in, unlike the suffering of loved ones under threats to their lives and freedoms”, and yet I still choose to stay off HP-specific reviews and announcements - I believe the only time I snapped back since that decision was when I accidentally clicked on a thread and saw someone claiming that no such transphobia existed, which was too offensive to be borne - and I only comment when they intrude on general threads.
Because it is perfectly possible to choose when to express anger.
@Hiratha said:
" @PurpleDave said:
" @Hiratha said:
" @maffyd said:
" @PurpleDave said:
" @maffyd said:
"There were comments on the other article? Well, they must've been very uninteresting if all of them were nuked from orbit."
No, there were comments _about_ the other article. Comments were preemptively disabled on the article itself, so people shifted to the next easiest target, which was the review @MeganL posted about the latest Friends riding stable. At first it was just questions about why comments were already disabled, and then people just started treating it like a substitute comment section."
Ah! I see. I wonder why it was preemptively locked then? I don't really. I have a good idea. Thanks for explaining."
At least based on some of what got posted on the Friends review, there are a small but very angry group of people who really hate Brick Search for reasons and want to make that everyone else’s problem, and had done so on previous threads that mentioned it. The comments were locked because moderating another thread of them being Like That seemed unappealing.
I assume this thread is open because even if that’s the case then it’s at least easier to do when they’re corralled somewhere predictable instead of leaking out into assorted other threads, but they don’t seem to have turned up to be quite so angry in this one. No idea why but I appreciate it."
Is HarryPottercrite a word? Kinda feels like it should be."
I don’t, in fact, turn up on every HP thread to be angry about it, quite deliberately. You may check, if you like.
This despite having trans friends and a trans sibling who are directly harmed by her actions. Imagine the restraint that takes. Imagine the reasons I must have for anger beyond “being mad at an app for being a bit naff and charging for it, a thing which is perfectly ignorable and has no real life impact that one does not choose to participate in, unlike the suffering of loved ones under threats to their lives and freedoms”, and yet I still choose to stay off HP-specific reviews and announcements - I believe the only time I snapped back since that decision was when I accidentally clicked on a thread and saw someone claiming that no such transphobia existed, which was too offensive to be borne - and I only comment when they intrude on general threads.
Because it is perfectly possible to choose when to express anger."
You definitely took shots in both of the recent AC reveal articles, and there have been other times this year. I don’t keep track of them, but I do notice them. You’re not the only one who does it, but I sometimes wonder if you realize how often you do so.
@PurpleDave said:
" @Hiratha said:
" @PurpleDave said:
" @Hiratha said:
" @maffyd said:
" @PurpleDave said:
" @maffyd said:
"There were comments on the other article? Well, they must've been very uninteresting if all of them were nuked from orbit."
No, there were comments _about_ the other article. Comments were preemptively disabled on the article itself, so people shifted to the next easiest target, which was the review @MeganL posted about the latest Friends riding stable. At first it was just questions about why comments were already disabled, and then people just started treating it like a substitute comment section."
Ah! I see. I wonder why it was preemptively locked then? I don't really. I have a good idea. Thanks for explaining."
At least based on some of what got posted on the Friends review, there are a small but very angry group of people who really hate Brick Search for reasons and want to make that everyone else’s problem, and had done so on previous threads that mentioned it. The comments were locked because moderating another thread of them being Like That seemed unappealing.
I assume this thread is open because even if that’s the case then it’s at least easier to do when they’re corralled somewhere predictable instead of leaking out into assorted other threads, but they don’t seem to have turned up to be quite so angry in this one. No idea why but I appreciate it."
Is HarryPottercrite a word? Kinda feels like it should be."
I don’t, in fact, turn up on every HP thread to be angry about it, quite deliberately. You may check, if you like.
This despite having trans friends and a trans sibling who are directly harmed by her actions. Imagine the restraint that takes. Imagine the reasons I must have for anger beyond “being mad at an app for being a bit naff and charging for it, a thing which is perfectly ignorable and has no real life impact that one does not choose to participate in, unlike the suffering of loved ones under threats to their lives and freedoms”, and yet I still choose to stay off HP-specific reviews and announcements - I believe the only time I snapped back since that decision was when I accidentally clicked on a thread and saw someone claiming that no such transphobia existed, which was too offensive to be borne - and I only comment when they intrude on general threads.
Because it is perfectly possible to choose when to express anger."
You definitely took shots in both of the recent AC reveal articles, and there have been other times this year. I don’t keep track of them, but I do notice them. You’re not the only one who does it, but I sometimes wonder if you realize how often you do so."
The advent calendar announcements were general articles, not HP articles. You can tell by the whole “themes other than HP in them” thing. I’m entirely fine with commenting when HP is in common areas, since fans can hardly expect a united front of positive fandom there.
As it happens, I *did* check, because it’s best to find out if you’re going to have to make apologies for misleading people: The one and only HP article I’ve commented on for however long back I went was the one I’d clicked on by accident and had the offensive denial in the comments. So, as I said, it is perfectly possible to choose when to speak.
I’m sure you don’t understand how offensive it is to compare not liking an app very much to not liking your loved ones being harmed, since otherwise you wouldn't have done it, and so I won’t hold it against you.
… and I ought to be more than old enough by now to know better than to allow myself to get dragged into a thread derailing disagreement, general thread or not, when ignoring it is a perfectly good option. Apologies to the mods, other commenters and lurkers.
@bekuehn said:
"I have yet to see what the cost of the monthly subscription will be.
Can anyone answer what this expected cost is?"
In the US the subscription cost of Brick Search is $3.49 a month.
@Hiratha said:
"… and I ought to be more than old enough by now to know better than to allow myself to get dragged into a thread derailing disagreement, general thread or not, when ignoring it is a perfectly good option. Apologies to the mods, other commenters and lurkers."
I was very excited to log in this morning and notice I'd been mentioned 5 times - so that's something :-)
Wow.
This thread stinks.
@5T3R30BR1CK5 said:
"..."
Thanks for your constructive feedback and pointing out some of the alternatives.
Your original account was silenced following an unacceptable diatribe.
@5T3R30BR1CK5 said:
" @Huw said:
" @5T3R30BR1CK5 said:
"..."
Thanks for your constructive feedback and pointing out some of the alternatives.
Your original account was silenced following an unacceptable diatribe."
Oh please do tell what was "unacceptable"?
You really don't take criticism well, do you?"
How does this block feature work? Asking for a friend…